Going Through Changes

We've been wrestling with this decision since we left How Now Dairy, but hitting one year of homelessness last month was the turning point. So my parents went to the real estate agent last Thursday afternoon, May 21, to list our land for sale. On Friday morning, the agent came out to take photos for the listing, and with her was a man who was looking for a new property for his horses. And he agreed to our price. Within 24 hours, our proposed timeline suddenly shrunk from three months to just six weeks, at which point my family and I will be returning to our homeland, New Zealand. The past twelve months have shown us that we have no future in Australia.

While I'm allowed to bring my dogs, our rats and our cattle will have to be rehomed. It's very upsetting but life hasn't left us with any other options. Our calves will be moving to a new home in northern Victoria. I haven't even looked for a new home for our rats yet.

There is so much to be done. Besides sorting our stuff and packing. Flights, hotels, a job and a place to live on the other side. I expect NZ's enforced quarantine will still be in place by the time we go, so we'll have to spend two weeks in a hotel under strict supervision by authorities. The worst part of that will be not having my dogs with me. And New Zealand law does not allow "owner training" of assistance dogs, so Skuggi won't be an assistance dog anymore. My whole lifestyle is going to change.

I have mixed feelings about this. Excitement about a new adventure, some relief that our sucky situation is going to change, but also a lot of anxiety and sadness. New Zealand is a beautiful country, but I never wanted to return there to live. Visit, sure, but my whole life was in Australia. This is my home - I suppose now I should say "was my home." Its people have let us down too many times and we can't survive here. But saying goodbye to my friends, my playful steer Logan, my mischievous rat Pixie, and everything I worked so hard for during 13 years in this country will be hard. I hope it's worth it in the end.

My next post should be more upbeat. It is nice to finally have something to aim for, and an end date for this unpleasant chapter of my life.

(Sorry for the lack of photos in this post. Blogger is having some issues today, apparently.)

One Year

Heads up. This is a rant post. A whinge post. I'm not in a good headspace and this post reflects that. So if you don't want to read my complaints about my life, you should stop reading now.

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A year ago today, we drove out the front gate of How Now Dairy for the last time, exhausted and anxious with no idea what would happen next. I certainly didn't think I would ever be writing this post.

But today marks one year of homelessness. One year of begging for help and hoping this nightmare would end. One year of applying for jobs and being ignored or turned down. One year of being repeatedly betrayed and abandoned by people I thought cared about us. 

My dogs and I spent the first ten nights sleeping on a mattress in the back of my car.

The first version of our camp.

Our cattle eating well, although Goldie was still a little thin after calving.

The first couple of months out here weren't too bad. In fact, within a short amount of time, we had managed to score another job and a house. But the day before we were going to move in, things started to fall apart. And then we lost it all. The house and the job and the friend who had helped organize it, and Goldie's calf as well.

Camp version 2 in June, now with two canvas tents. There were a lot of foggy days during this time.

After that, morale took a big hit. We only had enough savings for approximately two months, and once that time was up, the money ran out. We went into the winter living in tents. Some people started to act like this whole thing was our own fault. Some unkind things were said and we realized those people did not have our best interests at heart. With us living like this, we had nothing left to give and it brought out people's true colours. Trust is a hardwon thing but easily damaged, apparently, and we lost more people than I expected as the support dropped away and we were condemned for our "poor choices." But anyway, we kept living, through the frosty nights and squally rains. And then we came into spring, still in the tents.

Out on the bush tracks with Tess and Skuggi, October 2019.

Early days in the bus, with the bunks not quite fully installed.

Eventually, we got a nice bit of extra money from the government and brought an ex-school bus to live in. But summer was even tougher than the winter. No airconditioning through multiple days of 40*C+. I remember one horrible night in particular where it was still 35 degrees at midnight, with gusty winds that were scorching hot and carrying a heavy blanket of smoke into our camp. We were quite worried about bushfires but in a minor miracle, our property remained safe. And summer ended, and what a relief it has been to experience the cool of autumn and the first decent rainfalls of 2020.

A smoky day on the property, January 2020.

But winter is on its way back again now and we're still here, and it feels like it won't end. I ask myself, what did we do to deserve this? Why are we still homeless and jobless after a whole year of applying for multiple jobs every week? The only answer I can come up with is that people suck. They don't care about others. While we have had some help from some people and I am so grateful to them, at this point I truly believe that the majority of the population is selfish. 

When we first ended up here, someone told me not to be bitter. But I am bitter. I'm angry. The unfairness of the situation eats at me. The endless stress of not knowing if we'll be able to afford food next week or fuel to run our generator for power is exhausting.

I don't know what will happen next, because I don't have any options. I don't have any choices. (Grammarly asks, don't you mean you don't have "many" choices? No, I really do mean that I don't have any.) I feel like my life is just kind of happening, time going by without me. It's forcing me where I don't want to go and whatever happens next is completely out of my control. I want to believe I have a future, and a good life ahead of me, but the past twelve months have destroyed all my dreams and now I can't do any of the things I'd planned to.

We gave everything we had at How Now Dairy and what did we get in return? Nothing.

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I've written this blog post over several weeks. Taking parts out, adding things in, trying to accurately convey what it's like to live like this. And I wanted so badly to be able to end this post with some good news, some hope, but I have none.

The best dogs, my whole reason for getting up every morning.

Distancing

The world has changed a lot in the past two weeks. We've gone from the laughable toilet paper panic and frenzied hoarding, into an apocalyptic-feeling reality where most of the shops are closed and you aren't even allowed to have a barbeque with your extended family.

We didn't get to go to the agility trial on the weekend. On Monday, the 16th, all competitions were canceled until the end of April. Now the two trials in May have also been canceled, and the agility nationals have been postponed to a currently unspecified date. At this rate, we'll be lucky to have any competitions at all this year.

People remain divided between the panicked, the complacent, and the cautious. It's hard to know where on the scale to be. Am I reacting appropriately? Am I taking this seriously enough? Or am I worrying too much? It's a constant internal debate. And going shopping is more stressful than ever as I have to keep in mind the social distancing rules. Did I walk too close to that person? Am I standing too far away while they're talking to me? Thankfully most shops have Xs taped onto the floor and lines to show you where to stand in the queue, where to walk, so I don't have to guess all the time. I try to remember to smile and say thank you to people but honestly, I just want to get my groceries and get back home because it's exhausting. And finding cheap enough groceries continues to be a struggle because everyone is still buying them excessively, leaving us with the more expensive options.

Skuggi "blocking" at the supermarket yesterday, a task I always used to encourage people to give me extra space and now it's more useful than ever.

But so far our lifestyle hasn't suffered a drastic change with all these new restrictions, unlike many others. We've already been out of work for nearly eleven months now. And we haven't been able to afford to go anywhere aside from shopping for most of that time either. The only thing I really miss is the agility trials. I had high hopes for Skuggi's agility this year but as always life finds some way of ruining plans.

Sprinting to the finish line at our last agility trial, November 2019.

But otherwise, life just continues. I'm still sewing dog gear, mainly for my own dogs now since markets are canceled and I have no custom orders. We're working on agility things so hopefully by the time trials start again we will be able to superspeed out of Novice. We own 20 acres and our property is bordered by bushland, dirt roads winding through the trees, which is lovely for walking the dogs. As for Skuggi's assistance dog training, with social interactions basically forbidden, doing his public access test won't be happening for quite some time. The trainer I was going to do it with isn't able to get back to Australia this month as planned. He lives in the UK now and as you know, all international travel is banned. His license to certify assistance dogs expires in July and he said he won't be renewing it. So that's the end of that. When this is all over I guess I'll have to find another trainer who can certify him. Until then we carry on as normal as possible. 

Sparkie and Freya enjoying a bush walk earlier this week.

We picked up some wood and some wire netting to build a chook shed yesterday. I don't know when we'll be able to afford the actual chickens, but the materials were all free and it will be a fun project. And our little garden is growing well despite the kangaroos getting into the lettuces a few weeks ago. As well as the now rejuvenated lettuces, we have peas, strawberries, watermelon, radishes and an assortment of other sprouting herbs/vegetables.

Our garden.

Getting By

In my lifetime, there have been several outbreaks of "deadly diseases." But they always felt so distant. Australia was always safe enough from these things and nobody really worried about it over here. We have good healthcare available and a decent system for dealing with these things.

But a few weeks ago COVID-19 really started to affect Australia. In our local town, the feeling of panic amongst the community was intense. Everyone was in a hurry. People were stockpiling groceries like the world is going to end. A woman came into Mitre 10 in a rush as I was buying some clips for dog leads, looking around in a harried manner. When asked by a staff member if she needed help, she asked if they sold toilet paper. We have three big supermarkets in our town and apparently, they've all sold out. She was told that while Mitre 10 did have toilet paper usually, they'd also sold out earlier in the day. She walked out of the store with an increasing air of panic.

"We probably won't be able to contain this virus," said our health officials last month, "Everyone is at risk." They also told us not to panic but those words came too late and were easily overshadowed by the dire warning that came before. People are afraid and the media is loving it. "Deadly." "Death toll climbing." The whole country panicked. People ran to the shops and brought everything in bulk, leaving very little for the rest of us.

Fast forward to this week. COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic, bringing a fresh wave of fear to the country when it seemed like things were starting to calm down. Now, the Australian government is limiting how many people can meet up at a time. Events are being canceled. The recommendation to have two weeks of supplies on hand is impossible for us to follow. Without an income (besides the tiny amount we get from the government a fortnight), we are severely limited in how much we can buy at a time. And what's left on the shelves now is the more expensive products, which makes it even harder.

We're being careful, of course, but I'm not scared of getting sick. I'm scared that we won't have enough food to get through if this situation gets worse or if we did get sick. It's a tough time to be broke.

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In other news.

Our calves were going to be transported at the end of last month, but then the guy who was going to move them changed his mind because some of them have horns. He was worried about his truck getting damaged, which is fair enough but still annoying. Someone paid in advance for a month's worth of feed for the calves so we didn't have to worry about that, although we're halfway through that feed now and there's still no sign of our situation improving.

Someone gave us enough money to get a new generator, so I am able to keep sewing dog gear. We went to the local markets last weekend and sat there for five hours, and I sold absolutely nothing. A disappointing day.

 Skuggi hurt his foot so we weren't able to go to the agility trial at the beginning of the month. He's healed now though so we're planning to go to one next Saturday. Although at this point, I'm not sure if the trial will still go ahead.

We keep applying for jobs, but potential employers continue to muck us around (if they even respond to us at all) and then give the job to someone else. Nobody seems to understand how desperate we are. I'm so fed up with it.

So I think that's everything I needed to update you on. Life has taken on a bit of surreal feeling in the past few days. We live in very interesting times.

A Whole Lot Of Suck

Last night our generator died. It's out of warranty and we don't have enough money to buy a new one. We have a battery powered by solar that can charge our phones but that's about it. So here is one last blog post before my computer runs out of battery.

Although we haven't had any scorching heat so far, it has been pretty humid for most of the month, keeping it warm during the night which hasn't been nice. We've had a decent rainfall forecast a few times but we always miss out on most of it. Our property is in a dry spot, unfortunately. The dust is incredibly annoying and every time we have a windy day, it picks up huge clouds of it and it's impossible to keep it out of the bus. Everything and everyone is pretty much always covered in dust. 

The truck that is meant to transport our calves is fixed now, but immediately after that, we had a flat-out busy week. Tess had to go the vet twice, once to get a small lump on her face examined and then again for the surgery to remove it. The surgery went well and Tess has recovered nicely. We're still waiting on the test results though and hoping for good news. 

Now Spartan has started limping. He has some problem with his hooves, that will hopefully fix themselves with time because we don't have the facilities to restrain him for any treatment. We can hire a head bale from the vet but we don't have any yards, and he's not as quiet as Logan to just be led into the bale. Being homeless sucks and it was never supposed to be like this. So anyway, Spartan can't be sent away until his feet are better so they all have to stay for a bit longer.

The agility day was super fun and it was great to get away from reality for a bit. Skuggi ran the courses nicely for the most part and actually surprised me with how well he did with some new challenges. 

I am looking forward to our first real trial of the year which is coming up early next month. I was hoping to pull enough money together to actually get there. All the donations have been used up for food, fuel, and bills as usual and once again they've stopped coming in. So I started pushing my dog gear business again and I finally had another customer order for the first time in over a year but of course, without a generator, I can't use my sewing machine anymore. It seems like nothing I do ever works out.

Hopefully

Our job searches continue to be unsuccessful, despite many applications. And at the beginning of January, we had only one hay bale left for our cattle, several bills to pay, very little food for ourselves, and only $4 left in the bank. The thought of having to make an impossible decision about our pet cattle was devastating. Thankfully, after I posted on Facebook about our situation, several people donated enough money to keep them (and ourselves) fed for a little while longer. 

My friend has a property near Colac, VIC, which they have offered to let us put our cattle on for free until we can get our life sorted out. I had a transport company all ready to take them, but at the last minute his truck broke down and repairs are taking a long time. So we get to keep our babies for longer still.

In preparation for sending them away, Goldie has been "dried off" now, meaning we slowly stopped milking her and so she stopped producing any milk. Going back to the store brought milk was a shock. It tastes so gross compared to Goldie's fresh stuff! Even the milk from the fridge section marketed as higher quality (and with a higher price to match) doesn't taste anywhere as delicious as hers. Hopefully in the future we will be able to breed her again, but at this point, it wouldn't be responsible, with our financial and living situation here.

The weather has been nicer to us this month compared to December's heat, but January was determined to get in one day over 40*C, giving us 43 degrees on the 31st. We have been lucky to avoid any forecasted hail with the cool change storms, although the strong winds have damaged our tents. Thankfully we don't have actually live in them anymore and they are only used as storage spaces.


December
Days over 40*C: 4
Days over 35*C: 9
Days over 30*C: 15
Rainfall: 5mm (approx)
January
Days over 40*C: 1
Days over 35*C: 5
Days over 30*C: 15
Rainfall: 25mm (approx)

Hopefully February will follow January's lead with lower temperatures, but fingers crossed for more rain. It's very dry and dusty here. Although February has already given us more rain than all of December, just on the first day when we got around 10mm of rain with the cool change, so it's off to a good start.

Next weekend we are going to an agility "fun day." It will be a good opportunity to test Skuggi's abilities and see what we need to work on before the competition season starts again in March. I'm trying to save up enough money to actually get to the trials, which is hard when my dog gear business has been at a standstill for over a year despite being open for orders the entire time. We are going to attempt some local markets soon so hopefully that will give it a kickstart.

There are a lot of "hopefully"s in this post. Because we can't move forward, we can't do anything without someone else. Someone to employ us, someone to buy my stuff, someone to donate money. It's so hard relying on other people but there is no way we can get out of this situation on our own so it's just a whole lot of "hopefully" these days.

Hindsight Is 2020

"Hindsight Is 2020" was always going to be the name of this blogpost. The last post I would make before the far off year of 2020, recapping my adventures of the past years and the choices I've made to end up here. And "here" was going to be a wonderful place. I dreamed of all the things I would have achieved by 2020. Because I would be 23 by then so I'd have my life sorted out. I'd have a successful career, for one thing. I'd probably be living on my own. And of course, I would have my own vehicle - that's the only thing I have ticked off from that list.

But I want to go back over some old memories before I talk too much about the present time, remember some high points over the last ten years.

2010. Sparkie winning Grand Champion at the Novelty Dogs competition at the Gympie Show. The Gympie Show was such a big part of my life for so many years. We competed every year, from 2009 to 2014.

2011. It's hard to think only of the high points for this year. But we did have some. I started "The Superdogs" and we did our first performances at events in May and September.

2012. To my surprise, this year is actually the hardest to think of high points from. We really didn't do much, still reeling from the previous year I guess. I used to think that the best part of this year was breeding one of our dogs, but I've hugely regretted it ever since and I can no longer look back on it with any positive feelings.

2013. This was the year the Superdogs really got going. We performed in QLD, NSW, VIC, and NT. I got newspaper and radio interviews, and I loved every second of our time in the spotlight. Sparkie also started her assistance dog training this year.

2014. Sparkie passed her Public Access Test, making her a certified assistance dog.

2015. We went to our first Supernatural convention and met Jensen Ackles. I worked on a dairy farm and learned heaps about cows. This was the year I discovered that riding cattle was a thing.

2016. Skuggi came into my life. My friends invited me to hang with them a lot, including going to the Melbourne Dog Lover's Show. Sparkie also passed her second Public Access Test. And I brought Logan this year as well.

2017. We went to another Supernatural convention and Louden Swain concert, met Jared Padalecki for the first time, and Jensen Ackles again. I got to go to an aquarium in Melbourne with Sparkie.

2018. Sparkie went on her first airplane flight, to Sydney, where we went to a huge Doterra convention. We also did another Supernatural convention, this time meeting Misha Collins. I started breaking Logan in to ride. Skuggi started competing in agility.

2019. As Sparkie officially retired from her role as my assistance dog this year, it was Skuggi who got to come with me to Melbourne for a Doterra convention this time. We went to an agility workshop where we got to train under the winner of the 2018 World Agility Championship. Skuggi also won his jumping class at the State Agility Trial.

As 2020 got closer, my plans changed from travelling as The Superdogs to running an ethical dairy farm. For some time, I really thought How Now Dairy was my way in. They even suggested that I could take over How Now in the future if I wanted to. And I really wanted that. I allowed myself to get excited about my future again. But then very suddenly, we were fired and kicked out. I felt betrayed. And I can't imagine my future anymore. It feels a whole lot like I don't have one.

It seems like every year attempts to do worse things to me than the year before. And 2019 has had a good go at it. Starting out with having to get one of our kittens euthanized, then being forced to cancel so many of Skuggi's agility trials because our boss couldn't handle us leaving the property for a day (even on our days off), losing our house and job, Goldie losing her baby, and then being homeless with no job for the rest of the year. That's nearly eight months of homelessness and we have tried so hard to fix this. But nobody will give us a chance. I tried to get a job for myself. But there's nothing in this area that I could do. And I really mean nothing. Even a job selling and sorting clothes at the local Salvation Army store required previous experience in customer service or sales. All those years working with cattle and prior to that running the Superdogs is meaningless out here.

I planned for the past almost two years to go to the agility nationals in May 2020. It's in Western Australia. But unless something drastically changes before entries close in three months, I won't be able to afford the trip.

It's almost 2020, and I feel stuck. Time is going by without me. This year has taken the remainder of my plans and crushed them into the dust. How do you move forward from that, when there's nothing to move to?